


Deductions

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Developing Relationship, Domestic, F/F, Family Secrets, Implied Sexual Content, Meet the Family, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or observations on whether or not your girlfriend is a werewolf</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deductions

She meets Miranda at a bar after work.  
  
Well that isn't strictly true; she actually talks to Miranda at a bar after work for the first time that isn't something related to a case; Miranda works the night shift, Holly works days and they only meet in those magical moments when one shift bleeds into another and they have to hand something off to someone else. Miranda is some sort of blood expert, a prodigy the boss called her when he welcomed her at one of the rare moments when he grabbed most of the staff together. Holly's been at the lab longer and works fingerprints - her parents call it a party trick and even though it's a bit old now, she still likes taking prints at parties at home, showing people what they have, things they see every day and don't know. So Holly has seen Miranda around but she hasn't really spoken to her before until they end up in the same bar. Miranda can hold her drink better than anyone else Holly has ever seen, grinning the whole time like she's some seventies copper when in reality Miranda has the sort of tits a seventies copper would spend his whole night ogling. Not that Holly is staring. But they're there and it would be rude not to look.  
  
From Miranda's grins she's noticed and Holly, well, she's not easy but her job is her life and she doesn't ever get out too much and Miranda is good looking, actually she's gorgeous, slender but with definite curves, long sleek black hair and hazel eyes, a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She lets Miranda manhandle her when they stumble outside and share a taxi, letting Miranda nuzzle into her neck, inhaling and most people don't do that but they're both drunk (Holly far more so than Miranda who looks tipsy if anything) and she can let it pass.  
  
"You smell good," Miranda murmurs, lips against her neck, pressed close and it has to be the alcohol that makes Miranda feel so damn warm, throwing off heat like a furnace.  
  
"I smell like the pub and not showering in far too long," Holly slurs back while Miranda gives directions to the taxi driver, the older sort who has seen just about everything and is content to roll his eyes at the nonsense going on in his backseat, listening to the late night football talk station.  
  
"Well it works on you," Miranda replies as they negotiate who will pay, thank their taxi driver who tells them to have fun and stumble up to Miranda's flat.  
  
(Later Holly will spend a lot more time in this flat and notice all the little bits and pieces but this first time - the first half dozen times - she's in too much of a rush, too busy with hands and lips and being shoved up against the door or the kitchen counter with a thigh between hers so she can grind down like she's eighteen again. Or on the couch with Miranda's hands sliding beneath her clothes. Or in Miranda's hugely comfortable bed with her fingers tangled in black hair, feet planted flat on the mattress to give her better purchase to arch her hips up insistently as Miranda huffs a laugh against her inner thigh before going back to whatever the hell she's doing with her tongue that makes Holly want to scream.  
  
That first night is against the door and then the bed, the sex is incredibly good for drunk, awkward first time with a relative stranger sex - Holly has never been great at the one night stand thing - but what she likes most in a way she thinks is pathetic and possibly a little bit tragic is falling asleep with an arm around her waist, one long leg draped over her hip. She's sure she heard Miranda growl, low and deep but maybe it's just the roaring in her ears as she falls asleep and souped up wannabe drag racer boys outside treating the streets like a race track.)  
  
They have breakfast in the kitchen, Holly in (borrowed) knickers and t-shirt lured despite the hangover by the smell of frying bacon, padding across freezing floor tiles to hover awkwardly. She's twenty-six and she had amazing sex and now she's getting bacon apparently, she should not be hovering and feeling awkward because you know she's not a silly little girl anymore but she has to deal with Miranda at work and--  
  
"Morning sleepyhead," Miranda grins, almost obnoxious and _how_ does she not have a hangover? And judging from the laugh, she said it out loud. "I've always been able to hold my drink, good genetics on mum's side." That prompts another little grin but Holly is too hungover and there is _bacon_ sizzling and a gorgeous woman in underwear, a t-shirt and apron ready to feed some to her.  
  
"This is the best breakfast I've had in forever," Holly moans around a mouthful of crispy back and ketchup, both of them leaning over the counter so they don't get ketchup down Miranda's tops.  
  
"Not to sound like I'm rushing you but you're days aren't you?" Miranda asks, leaning over Holly to switch the kettle on.  
  
"Day off," she replies, watching Miranda out the corner of her eye, wondering where this conversation is going until she relaxes when she catches sight of a grin. "You look like you're planning something."  
  
"Finish your breakfast, I'll make some tea and then we can share a shower. If you want?" It doesn't sound like a question or an offer, it's a suggestion not helped by the little hip bump or the fingers trailing down her back and then up under the soft cotton of the borrowed t-shirt.  
  
"I definitely want."  
  
After all, if she's ending her dry spell then she wants to do it on a high.

* * *

  
  
As it turns out it's ending the dry spell and then some. They exchange numbers and she gets texts at work from Miranda, usually about whatever crap Miranda happens to be watching on TV (nature documentaries, the cooking channel `think I will marry a soufflé sorry but it is the sexiest thing` is a particular highlight that gets her through a horrendous Wednesday of smeared partials and people expecting miracles and a migraine of doom. There are texts when she's at home from the night shift too, watching bad TV because she enjoys watching things like CSI to sit and sigh at how horribly wrong it all is. `Smell of blood makes me want rare steak wrong y/n?` It's hard to co-ordinate but sometimes she tells Miranda to pack a change of clothes and spend a day or night or whatever at her place and more often Miranda does the same, letting Holly take in the amount of odd things in that flat. Or not odd exactly just not what Holly was expecting. Like the amount of venison in the freezer. Or the stag skulls mounted in her bedroom (to be fair she noticed those fairly early on but sex is not the time to ask 'hey, what's up with our skull audience') with scarves and necklaces hanging from their antlers. There's the lunar calendar with the day before a full moon, the day (or night as the case may be) and the two following days all marked with four red crosses - but Holly has a very similar calendar with five red crosses a month in her own flat only hers has cats on it and came as a Christmas present from an elderly aunt. She tries not to dwell on it too much or the pointed looks her mother shoots it when she visits that say 'find a nice young lady and adopt some grandchildren for me instead of ending up like Auntie Muriel alone with her cats and her knitting'. Or that's how she interprets that look.  
  
"I was wondering if I could ask you something," she begins over dinner - venison burgers and vegetables because Miranda seems to be a carnivore because there's always meat on her plate and she always laughs off the statistics about safe red meat consumption per week saying that only a wife will be allowed to nag her about that - taking a sip of red wine.  
  
"Shoot," Miranda replies, sticking to water because she has work tonight.  
  
"It's about the venison. And the skulls."  
  
"Do they freak you out?" Miranda asks, sounding protective of the skulls and looking so forlorn that it startles a laugh out of Holly, choking on her wine so hard she can't breathe for a good few minutes until she calms down.  
  
"You do remember that we work in the same lab right Miri? That I'm a forensic scientist and that I'm used to my fair, more than my fair share really, of gore?"  
  
"You do fingerprints; don't try to sound all badass like the coroner's new assistant what'shisface."  
  
"Excuse me miss paint the walls with blood."  
  
"That's a good one."  
  
"I know, I'm very proud but to answer your question no, the skulls don't freak me out. A mounted head might because it would have those creepy glass eyes staring at me," she shudders at the mental image that comes to mind of some beheaded stag staring down at them with those all-seeing empty eyes.  
  
"Okay good, my last girlfriend broke up with me because I refused to take the skulls down - I'd like to point out that she had a shelf of beanie babies that I said nothing about even when I felt dirty undressing in front of those beady black eyes." She swats at Miranda even if they're both laughing, everything disgustingly domestic and Holly has always done this thing where if she's happy she can't just let it be, instead having to pick it apart so she can analyse it slowly destroying all the little pieces that add up to a true moment of joy. She's always too analytical, too critical but maybe that was because nothing was ever quite right with anyone else whereas being with Miranda she's never on her guard. "But an explanation and please don't freak out because the last time I told someone this they started crying and blubbering on about bambi."  
  
"Did they call you a monster?"  
  
A shadow crosses over Miranda's face for just a second, the way she looks down and to the side, pressing her lips together until she shakes her head. It isn't a moment Holly forgets but Miranda moves the conversation on so she can't actually bring it up again without prying.  
  
"My family go hunting. It's a really old tradition, hunting licenses - we have an estate on dad's side that's been in the family for generations, out in the country in the middle of nowhere, just miles of woods and moors. I go hunting too when I can, if you want you could come with me next time I go?" That's one thing that never stops sounding awkward and stilted, inviting your girlfriend (there's no word that works, partner makes her feel like she's in some terrible buddy cop thing, significant other just sounds ridiculous to her ears so she'll have to settle for girlfriend even though she hasn't been a girl in her mind for a good five years) to meet the parents. One hand stretches across the table to squeeze Miranda's, Holly smiling.  
  
"I'd love to," she says honestly and Miranda relaxes, scarfing down the rest of her dinner, kissing Holly on the cheek and running out the door to go to work. It's domestic, it's the sort of thing she'd roll her eyes at because it reminds her of her parents for god's sake but it makes her smile as she's loading the dishwasher and curling up in a bed that smells of Miranda, cinnamon and some woodsy note she can't quite place. Miranda comes home from her shift smelling like the lab and promptly wriggles under the covers, arm around Holly's waist, leg over her hip, nuzzling at her hair. She still growls - it's honest to god growling, Holly knows that now - about how good Holly smells. She blames it on lab fumes or just Miranda being weird but it's good weird and it makes her fall asleep for another hour with a smile on her face.

* * *

  
  
It's once they're living together that Holly notices the kind of intensity Miranda has. This strange buzz of energy that gets under her skin that she never noticed until meeting Miranda's family because they all exhibit it, this kind of pulse, tactile at all times with the same bright eyes. Holly is welcomed, hugged by parents, a brother and pregnant sister-in-law, an uncle and grandparents; the estate is huge, sprawling and the house (it probably has a proper title, stately home or a manor) is the kind that has an east wing and west wing and of course Holly gets lost on her way to the loo more than once.  
  
"The whole family used to live here," Miranda explains as they walk around the grounds after dinner, their breath fogging the air. The stars are out and so much brighter than they are in the city, a definite chance for frost come morning, "Everyone tries to get back as often as they can for birthdays, Christmas, new year, Halloween, Easter, that sort of thing."  
  
"How many are there?"  
  
"There's my brother that you met, my older sister is on holiday with her husband and my two younger brothers are at uni just now so it's harder for them to get home as often as they'd like. Dad and the brother that lives run one part of the family business with the hunting trips or tours of the woods, that whole outdoorsy scene? My sister-in-law just quit her job to be a housewife, the sister on holiday makes her own jewellery and her husband is some sort of banker but that's boring so I've never actually listened to him talking." Holly laughs quietly, trying to imagine all those people in the house, noise at all hours of the day and night but it's nice. She loves her own family but no one is particularly close outside her parents and the auntie she sees because everyone is miles away, no one really wanting to make the effort to go visiting. There are letters and cards but that's about it.  
  
"What about your little brothers?"  
  
"The older one is off studying law so he can drive a flash car and get a beautiful wife," they both snort because they unfortunately have to deal with lawyers and his bubble will be burst very shortly, "and the other one wants to be a doctor."  
  
"Your parents have a lot to be proud of."  
  
"Mum and dad just want us to be happy and to bask in their family, lots of grandkids to dote on and spoil, that sort of thing. There wasn't any pressure which sounds mad, believe me I know, when I say what we're all off doing but it was always just...love." There's a small smile on Miranda's face, her nose crinkling just a little. "Mum used to be a chef but she had to live away too much so she does cookbooks now and dispatches horrendous amounts of food to us as though we can't fend for ourselves - by the way, don't get her started on organic this and that because she won't shut up and you don't want to see me stab myself in the face with a fork at dinner."  
  
Holly gives Miranda a shove, shaking her head and laughing even as they head back in to dinner where she's subject to twenty questions with Miranda trying to cut in sharply but she likes it, talking about her work and life even if it feels like an interrogation or close to it. Miranda's mother asks for her to come taste the sauce for the dessert in the kitchen that's bigger than Holly's first flat. Holly isn't stupid, she knows why she's been singled out, starting to feel like a deer in the headlights after she's tasted the richest, most decadent chocolate sauce known to man.  
  
"I know we can be a bit much," Miranda's mother ("darling call me Regina please") as she starts portioning the dessert into the bowls on the tray, "but we just want the best for our little girl even if she's not so little anymore - you should ask Hamish's wife what it was like when he first brought her home, I think the phrase 'thrown to the wolves' was tossed around more than once." Holly should say that she understands, that her parents would be the same but there's something just a little bit off. Not in a way that has her wanting to hightail it out of the estate miles from anywhere; it worries her that she wants to picture herself as part of a family as loving as Miranda's but there's just something different. Almost as if they're more than family or like one of the crime families, the cheesy ones from The Sopranos even if she highly doubts they're involved in anything illegal or dodgy. Maybe it's more like a pack. A pack of ridiculously loving tactile people in some country estate.  
  
She learns how to shoot a gun but she can't make herself go hunting with them and instead gets to know Miranda's sister-in-law better, asking her what she thinks about the family and if she felt as nervous when she first met them. The wolves line comes up, giving Holly a moment of pause before she's dragged back into the here and now as the hunters come back with two deer between then, grinning. Miranda kisses her (apparently they're not going to bother with subtlety here in front of a chunk of the family in the kitchen) and smells like the woods, pine, moss and tree sap with a hint of blood from the deer. She doesn't smell like buckshot, none of them do even though they've got guns with them but she doesn't ask because it just would be odd to ask who did what as the deers are carted off to be gutted. Miranda's eyes look a little brighter and if she's dragged off to the bedroom and thrown up against the door then she'll just go with it and try to keep as quiet as possible so she can spared at least a little mortification over dinner.

* * *

  
  
Holly is a scientist. She is rational. She is analytical. She works with facts, evidence, hypotheses. Now that she and Miranda are living together in Miranda's flat with more family visits and organising their work schedules so they can go out to dinner or the cinema or clubbing then she really starts to notice enough that she ends up taking notes. _You are being paranoid Holly,_ she writes in the notebook. _You are being insane, paranoid and delusional and if you doom this because you cannot content yourself with your fabulous girlfriend and her family then it's your own fault and you should feel bad. You will have to move far away and get a new job if you fuck this up._ But she doesn't stop, cataloguing all the little things that give her pause in a notebook that lives at the very bottom of her bag, some guilty secret as Miranda carries on as normal.  
  
She has little notes about the monster thing. The lunar calendar. The deer thing because Miranda's family don't have dogs but the deer had throat wounds (yes, she might have crept in to sneak a peek) and no gunshot wounds despite the fact that the family all knew how to fire guns as evidenced by the clay pigeon shooting Holly had gone on several times with them. The amount of red meat Miranda was happy to pack away. The sniffing thing which went along with the ridiculous amounts of body heat and the tendency to leave bites, not love bites or bruises or anything that broke the skin but nips to her throat or wrist or inner thigh. The names too. Regina and Orion she chalked up to stately families (even if Regina had her flicking through a book about Ancient Rome in the library) but then there was Lowell. Wolf. Diana, goddess of moon and hunting (which tied in with the Ancient Rome connection), Miranda (she'd started there, thinking it was Regina-Juno-The Tempest but Miranda was one of Jupiter's moons) and Edwin (as in Edwin Aldrin, better known as Buzz Aldrin) and Connor (dog lover or better yet, wolf lover.) They share the calendar (Holly has switched to purple for the sake of avoiding any possible confusion) but Miranda is always around the full moon, like a cliché out of terrible horrors or paranormal/supernatural dramas or something along those lines. She doesn't grow hair or fangs or anything like that but she's broody, snappy and prone to taking late night runs, absolutely terrible with bright lights or loud noises. Holly is sure she caught her eating raw mince once.  
  
So either Holly is mad, Miranda (and possibly her whole family) is mad or Miranda is a werewolf (and by extension at least her blood family and oh god what if that's what they do because Lowell's wife seemed so utterly comfortable with them, as if she belonged and maybe Miranda has killed someone and eaten them which puts her off meat for the better part of a month.) How does one even go about this sort of thing? Does she cook Miranda a rare steak and brandish something silver and some wolfsbane (she couldn't even look werewolves up on her laptop in the flat or at work, she went to the library instead along with her book on Ancient Rome and for christ's sake she is now a twenty-seven year old fingerprint analyst, not a girl from a TV show or a film) while she asks if she's a werewolf or lycanthrope or whatever it is she likes to be called. When she tries to picture Miranda's reaction she doesn't know which one scares her the most: a smile of confirmation (maybe before she rips Holly's throat out) or a look that suggests she'll be dropping Holly off at the loony bin.  
  
Most of the time Holly can forget about it. She and Miranda have a great time - they both love one another and say so often, they have incredible mind-blowing sex that leaves even her toes tingling, their jobs are fulfilling, the families both get along and they talk about the future and unlike far too many previous girlfriends Miranda is _not_ emotionally constipated. Miranda makes her bacon, Holly introduces her to a wide variety of tea and they curl up to watch TV on the couch - just a normal couple. Except Holly still has lingering doubts. About what her girlfriend actually is. They're almost to the family estate, spending another weekend (this one unplanned but Regina was the one to say they were going to be there or so help them and Holly knows _that_ particular tone well enough from her own mother) where she's sure she has to put on at least a stone because Regina is forever giving her second and third helpings of everything and where she'll be paranoid about the goings on in the woods (the family have no dogs but she's sure she's woken in the middle of the night to howling with Miranda's side of the bed long since cold) when she turns to Miranda as they park the car.  
  
"I need to ask you something about your family," she begins which is something, in hindsight, that she should have said before they left the flat.  
To her credit, Miranda grins. A particularly wolfish grin, flashing white teeth where all Holly can focus on are canines that have possible dripped blood at some point. "Why do you think my mother demanded we show up for dinner?"  
  
Holly sits in the car for five minutes like an idiot before muttering 'thrown to the bloody wolves' to herself as she follows Miranda inside.


End file.
